Indigo and Resist Dyeing: Performance, Metaphor and Materiality in Contemporary Cloth

Contemporary textile artist and researcher Linda Brassington provides an unexpected and expansive critical perspective on the practices, meanings and heritage of a global textile technique. Drawing connections across disciplines from visual arts to anthropology, Brassington provides a distinctly different alternative approach to the historical, technical and ethnographic accounts available. International case studies from traditional and contemporary artists, practitioners and performers take us through workshops, studios and dye rooms from England to Central Europe and Japan. Steeped in this practical and contextual understanding of the process, Brassington probes the visual and sensory language of her practice, the cultural anthropology of its formation, and the metaphorical and personal resonances of its materials, techniques, rhythms, and performative gestures. At the heart of her study lies a bold redefinition of intangible cultural heritage, one that recognizes artistic techniques and processes as living expressions of cultural identity and artistry. Moving beyond the transmission of skills and knowledge, her lyrical accounts reveal indigo and resist dyeing as a sensory space of lived experience alongside material, colour and cloth, and make this innovative study an essential read for scholars, students, and practitioners alike.